Cripple Creek

by James Sallis

  "I'll talk to him, first thing in the morning."

  "I appreciate it."

  "Be good to have you back, June."

  J. T. was sitting out on the porch when I got home. I settled beside her. Frogs called to one another down in the cypress grove.

  "Val gone?"

  "Hour or so back."

  "Feel up to helping a friend clean house?" I asked.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BACK WHEN I WORKED as a therapist, having acquired something of a reputation around Memphis, I tended to get the hard cases, the ones no one else wanted. Referrals, they're called, like what Ambrose Bierce said about good advice—best thing you can do is give it to someone else, quick. And for the most part these referrals proved a surly, deeply damaged lot, none of them with much skill at or inclination towards communication, all of them leaning hard into the adaptive mechanisms that had kept them going for so long but that were now, often in rather spectacular fashion, breaking down.

  I was therefore somewhat surprised at Stan Bellison's calm demeanor. I knew little of him. He was, or had been, a prison guard, and had suffered severe job-related trauma. The appointment came from the state authority.

  Why are you here? is the usual, hoary first question, but this time I needn't ask it. Stan entered, sat in the chair across from me, and, after introducing himself, said: "I'm here because I was held hostage."

  Two inmates had, during workshop, dislodged a saw blade from its housing and, holding it against one guard's throat, taken another—Stan, who tried to come to his fellow guard's aid— hostage. Sending everyone else away, the inmates had blockaded themselves in the workshop and, when contacted, announced they would only speak to the governor. The first guard they released as a gesture of goodwill. Stan, whom they referred to as Mr. Good Boy, they kept.

  "You were a cop," Bellison said. Once again I remarked his ease.

  "Not a very good one, I'm afraid."

  "Then let's hope you're better as a therapist," he said, and laughed. "I don't want to be here, you know."

  "Few do."

  His eyes, meeting mine, were clear and steady.

  Each day the inmates cut off a finger. The crisis went on eight days.

  On the last, the lead inmate, one Billy Basil, stepped through the door to pick up a pizza left just outside, only to meet a sniper's bullet. The governor hadn't come down from the capitol to parlay, but he had sent instructions.

  "So then it was over, at least," I said. "The trauma, what they did to you, that'll be with you for a long time, of course."

  "You don't understand," Stan Bellison told me. "The other inmate? His name was Kyle Beck. That last day, as he stood staring at Billy's body in the open door, I came up behind him and gouged out his eyes with my thumbs."

  He held up his hands. I saw the ragged stumps of what had been fingers. And the thumbs that remained.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  " SHE'LL NEVER LEARN, will she?"

  "That's what she said you'd say."

  We were sitting on the bench outside Manny's Dollar $tore, where almost exactly a year ago Sarah Hazelwood and I had sat, when her brother was murdered. Lonnie took a sip of coffee. A car passed down Main Street. Another car. A truck. He sipped again. A light breeze stirred, nosing plastic bags, leaves, and food wrappers against our feet. "You still have that possum you told me about?"

  "Miss Emily. Yeah. Got a family now. Ugliest little things you can imagine."

  Brett Davis came out of the store buttoning a new flannel shirt, deeply creased from being folded, over the one he already wore.

  "Lonnie. Mr. Turner."

  "First purchase of the millennium, Brett?"

  "Last one just plumb fell apart when Betty washed it. Says to me, Brett, you better come on out here, and she's holding up a tangle of wet rags. Damn shame."

  "For sure." Lonnie touched forefinger to forehead by way of saying good-bye. Brett climbed into his truck that always looked to me like something that had been smashed flat and pumped back out, maybe with powerful magnets.

  "June's right," Lonnie said after a while. "I've always blamed her, always turned things around in my mind so that they got to be her fault. I don't know why."

  "Disappointment, maybe. You expect as much from her as you do from yourself—and expect much the same things. We construct these scenarios in our minds, how we want the world to be, then we kick at the traces when the world's not like that. We're all different, Lonnie. Different strengths, different weaknesses."

  "Don't know as I ever told you this before, but there's times I feel flat-out stupid around you. We talk, and you tell me what I already know. Which has got to be the worst kind of stupid."

  "It's all the training I've had."

  "The hell it is."

  Lonnie took June to dinner that night, just the two of them. She'd spent the day, with J. T.'s help, getting her house back in order. He put on his best shirt and a tie and the jacket of a leisure suit that had been hanging in the back of his closet for close on to thirty years and met her at her door with a spray of carnations and drove all the way over to Poplar Crossing, to the best steakhouse in the county. "Everybody must of thought this was just some poor foolish old man romancing a young woman," June said when she came in to work the next morning.

  With her there to hold down the fort, I decided to go visit Don Lee. He'd been transferred to the county hospital an hour or so away.

  He was off the respirator now. An oxygen cannula snaked across the bed to his nose. Water bubbled in the humidifier. IV bags, some bloated, others near collapse, hung from poles. One of the poles held a barometer-like gadget that did double duty, registering intercranial pressure and draining off fluid.

  "He's intermittently conscious," a nurse told me, "about what we'd expect at this point. He's family? A friend?"

  "My boss, actually." There was no reason to show her the badge but I did anyway. She said she was sorry, she'd be right outside the door catching up on her charting, and left us alone.

  I put my hand against Don Lee's there on the bed. His eyes opened, staring up at the ceiling's blankness.

  "Turner?"

  "I'm here, Don Lee."

  "This is hard."

  "I know."

  "No. This is hard."

  I told him what went down in Memphis.

  "Kind of let the beast out of the cage there, didn't you?"

  "Guess I did, at that."

  "You okay?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good. I'm tired, really tired. . . . Why did someone stick an icepick in my head, Turner?"

  "It's a monitor."

  "Man-eater?"

  "No, monitor."

  "Big lizard you mean."

  "Not really."

  He seemed to be thinking that over.

  "They keep telling me and I keep forgetting: June's okay, right?"

  "She's fine. Back at work as of today."

  I thought he'd fallen off again when he suddenly said, "You sure you don't want to be sheriff?"

  "I'm sure."

  "Smart move," he said.

  I was backing the Chariot out of a visitor's space when the beeper went off. I sat looking at the number while a car and an SUV roughly the size of a tank blared horns at me.

  June.

  I pulled back into the space, earning a middle-finger salute from the tank driver, and went to use the phone in the hospital lobby.

  "How's Don Lee?" June asked.

  "Looking good. Still gonna be a while. So what's up?"

  "Maybe nothing. Thelma called. From the diner? Said some guy was in there early this morning. Waiting in his car when they came in to open, actually. Just ordered coffee. Then a little later—she and Gillie and Jay were setting up, of course, but she swung by a time or two to check on him—he asked after you. Said he was an old friend."

  Any old friends I was supposed to have, I probably didn't want to see.

  "When Thelma said he should check in at the sheriff's office, he said w
ell, he was just passing through, pressed for time. Maybe he'd come back."

  "Thelma say what he looked like?"

  "Slight, dark skin and hair, wearing a suit, that was dark too, over a yellow knit shirt buttoned all the way up. Good shoes. Thing was, Thelma said, he didn't ask the kind of questions you'd expect. Where you lived, what you did for a living, all that. What he wanted to know was did you have a family, who your friends were."

  "Thanks, June. He still around?"

  "Got back in his car, Thelma said—a dark blue Mustang, I have the license number for you—and drove off in the direction of the interstate."

  "I'm on my way in. See you soon."

  Half an hour later I pulled off the road onto the bluff just above Val's house. The old Ames place, as everyone still called it. Val was up at the state police barracks doing her job, of course, but a dark blue Mustang sat in her drive.

  I went down through stands of oak and pecan trees trellised with honeysuckle, through ankle-deep tides of kudzu, to the back door opening onto the kitchen. No one locked doors here, and the kitchen would have no interest for him.

  I also had the advantage of knowing the house and its wood floors. Focusing on creaks above, I followed his progress: master bedroom, hallway, second and third bedrooms, bath. Then the tiny tucked-wing room probably meant for servants, and the hallway again.

  "You'd be Turner," he said from the top of the stairs.

  One cool guy. Sure of himself and waiting to see which way the wind blew.

  I put a round through one knee. He came tumbling down the stairs with left hand and drawn weapon bumping behind him, to the base, where my foot pinned his wrist.

  "Apologies first," I said. "You're obviously not one of the thick-neck boys. They wouldn't know subtlety if it ran over them, then backed up and had another go."

  "Contract," he said.

  "Who's paying?"

  "You know how it works. I can't tell you that."

  I moved the snout of the Police Special vaguely in his direction, a sweeping motion. "Ankle or knee?"

  I used Val's phone to call and tell June I was going to be a little later than I'd thought. Then I drove back to the hospital, one of Val's sheets wrapped tight around my passenger's leg. There wasn't much vessel damage, but joints do get bloody. Ask any orthopedic surgeon.

  I was doing just that ("Case like this, we can rebuild the joint from the fragments, adding a bit of plastic here and there— sometimes that's best, staying with the original—or we can replace the whole thing. The newest titanium appliances are remarkable") when Val walked through the double doors.

  "June called me."

  I thanked the doctor and said I'd get back to him about cost, responsibility, and so on.

  "Not a problem," he said. "Mr. Millikin had proof of insurance with him. He's fully covered. Says he wants to be the man of steel. I've got to go finish a procedure up in OR—got interrupted to check him out. Then we'll have him brought up." Nodding his leave-taking: "Sheriff. Ma'am."

  "What the hell is going on?" Val asked. "This guy was in my house? Why was this guy in my house? Who the hell is this guy?"

  In the basement we found a place to get coffee, not really a cafeteria, more a kind of commissary, and I walked her through what had happened.

  "So, what? He was going to hold me hostage?"

  "Or worse. Beyond saying it's a contract, he won't talk."

  "This ties in with what went down in Memphis."

  I nodded.

  "Going back in turn to Don Lee's arrest of what's-his-name— Judd Kurtz?"

  "Right again."

  "From what little I know about it, farming out enforcement work's not the way these people usually handle things."

  "True enough. What I'm thinking is, given how it went down last time, they've elected for a low profile. Set it up so nothing can be traced back to them."

  Blowing across her coffee cup—absolutely superfluous, since the coffee was at best lukewarm—Val tracked a young woman's progress down the line. An elaborate tattoo scored the nape of her neck. She wore studded boots and sniffed at everything she took from narrow, glass-shuttered shelves. Most of it, she set back.

  "These guys have the longest memories of all," Val said. "They've got wars that have been going on for centuries. Sooner or later, they don't hear from their scout, they'll figure out it went wrong."

  "We could send them his head."

  Having reached the register, the tattooed young woman stood beaming at the cashier as he spoke, waited, and spoke again. Then the smile went away and she came back into motion.

  "Just kidding," I said. "You're right. They'll wait a while, but they'll be back. Someone will."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THAT NIGHT AROUND ELEVEN I got a call. Mabel had routed it through to me at home. I could barely hear the speaker over the jukebox and roar of voices behind.

  "This the sheriff?"

  "Deputy."

  "Good enough. Reckon you better get on out here."

  "Where's here?"

  "The Shack. State Road Forty-one, mile past the old cotton gin."

  I told him I was on my way and hung up.

  "Where's Eldon playing these days?" I asked Val.

  "Place called The Shack. Why?"

  "Thought so. They've got trouble."

  "He okay?"

  "I don't know. You be here when I get back?"

  "I have a home day tomorrow, and some briefs I need to get started on tonight. Call me?"

  I said I would, and asked her to leave a note for J. T. in case she woke while I was gone. Clipped the holster on my belt and headed for the Chariot.

  The Shack was surprisingly well constructed, built of wood and recently repainted, dark green with lighter highlights. Shells paved the parking lot, crunching as I walked across. Specimens of every insect native to the county swarmed in dense clouds around the yellow lights at the door.

  The bar took up the wall just inside and to the right, allowing the bartender to keep an eye on everything. The ceiling was low, bar lit by a single overhead light that filled the shelves with shadows.

  The bandstand, little more than a pallet extending a foot or so above the floor, occupied the corner opposite the bar. Most of the patrons were gathered there. Upon hearing the heavy door, they looked around. How they heard it, I don't know, what with the war sounds coming from the jukebox.

  "Turn that thing off."

  The bartender reached under the bar. A saxophone solo died in mid-honk, like a shot goose.

  The crowd drew back as I approached. Eldon sat on the edge of the bandstand. One eye was swollen almost shut; blood, black in the half-light, black like his face, blotched the front of his shirt. His guitar lay in pieces before him. The bass player stood backed against the wall, hugging his Fender. The drummer, still seated, twirled a stick in each hand.

  "Come on, you son'va'bitch! Stand up and fight like a goddamn man!" This from a stocky guy with his back to me.

  I put a hand gently on his shoulder and he came around swinging, then grunted as I tucked one fist in his armpit, grabbed his wrist with the other, pulled hard against the latter and leaned hard into the former. When he brought the other hand around to strike, I gave his wrist a twist. What must have been a buddy of his started towards me, saying "Hey man, you can't—" only to have a drumstick strike him squarely between the eyes. He staggered back. The drummer, who'd thrown the stick like a knife, wagged a finger in warning.

  "You okay, Eldon?"

  "Yeah."

  "How about you?" I asked the stocky guy. "You cooled down?"

  He nodded, and I let go, backing off. Watching his eyes. I saw it there first, then in the shift of his feet. Stamped hard on his instep, and when that knee buckled, I kicked the other foot out from under him.

  "Don't get up till you're ready to behave." Then to Eldon: "What's this all about?"

  "Who knows? Guy starts hanging around the bandstand, has something to say every minute or two, I just
smile and nod and ignore him. So he starts getting louder. Tries to get up onstage at one point and spills a beer on my amp. So then he stumbles getting down and starts yelling that I pushed him. Next thing I know, he's grabbed my guitar and smashed it."

  "You want me to take him in?"

  "Hell no, Turner. Not like I ain't been through this before. Just get his buddy there to take him the fuck home and let him sleep it off."

  I helped the man up.

  "Your lucky day," I told him. "Give me your billfold." I took the driver's license out. "You come pick this up tomorrow and we'll have a talk. Now get the hell out of here."

  I waited at the bar while Eldon borrowed a towel from the bartender and went in the bathroom to clean up. He came back looking not much better.

  "Shirt kinda makes me homesick for tie-dye. Buy you a drink?"

  "Tomato juice."

  "And a draft for me," I told the bartender.

  The jukebox came back on. I looked hard at the bartender and the volume went down about half.

  "He wanted you to fight him."

  "Sure did."

  "But you didn't."

  Eldon looked off at the bandstand, where drummer and bassist were packing up.

  "Must be about six, seven years ago now. Club down in Beaumont. I's out back on a break and this guy comes up talkin' 'bout You shore can play that thing, boy. Gets up in my face like a gnat and won't go away."

  He finished off his juice.

  "I damn near killed him. Vowed that day I'd never take another drink and I'd never fight another man. You ever killed anyone, Turner?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I have."

  "Then you know."

  I nodded.

  The bass player had scooped up what was left of Eldon's guitar and put it in the case. He brought the case over and set it at Eldon's feet.

  "Talk to you tomorrow," Eldon said.

  "Don't call too early." An old joke: they both grinned.

  Out on the floor, four or five couples were boot-scooting to Merle Haggard's "Lonesome Fugitive."

  "Back when I played R&B, I always had half a dozen or more electric guitars," Eldon said. "Have me a Gibson solid-body, a Gretsch, one of those Nationals shaped like a map, a Telecaster or a Strat. Ain't had but this old Guild Starfire for years now. When I bought it, place called Charlie's Guitars in Dallas, it had the finish torn off right above the pickup, where this bluesman had had his initials glued on. Guess he slapped it on his next guitar. And guess I'll be heading up to Memphis in the morning to do some shopping."